Channeling Puccini

On the morning of June 6, 2006, Chinese composer Hao Weiya (pictured), then a visiting scholar at the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia in Rome, was woken by a phone call from China.

It was Chen Zuohuang, the famous Chinese conductor and music director of the National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA). Chen was calling Hao to ask whether he was willing to create a new ending for Puccini's opera Turandot.

Puccini died in 1924 before he finished the opera. The version that is usually performed was completed by Puccini's colleague, Franco Alfano.

"The commission was a total surprise. I held the phone for a while, with no idea whether to say yes or no," Hao recalls.

"It was very difficult, very difficult. It's a great challenge for any of today's composers, even an Italian. The music was composed more than 80 years ago and I cannot go back that far. Then, I am Chinese. To Italian opera, I am a foreigner. And I must make it sound like Puccini, not Mozart or Verdi."

But he finally accepted the commission and has created an 18-minute finale, including Turandot's aria The First Tears.

"It's not that easy for Chinese people to love Italian opera as much as they love Italian fashion and spaghetti. But this joint-production of Turandot is a good start," says Franco Moretti, general manager of the Italy Foundation of Festival Puccini. "(Hao) respects the tradition of Italian opera as well as the master Puccini. I hope Chinese audiences will enjoy it.

Chen Jie

7:30 pm, March 21 to 26

National Center for the Performing Arts, west to the Great Hall of the People

6655 0000, 6585 5755, 400 620 6006

(China Daily 03/14/2008 page20)